


monster(s)

by Cards_Slash



Series: Sass Verse [3]
Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Minor Violence, Unhappy things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 23:06:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4684670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Side-story to Sass, ties in around Chapter 27.</p><p>Federico's life has always been a series of catch-phrases and commands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	monster(s)

Federico’s life broke down in a series of catchphrases and commands.

In the hazy-days of his earliest memory, long before there were squalling baby brothers and Mother’s doting smile hovering over infants in fancy clothing, there was his father’s hand on his and his Mother’s quick-quick words saying: “ _smile, Federico, the world is always watching_.” Other boys were skinning their knees and throwing tantrums about sweets in the aisles of stores, but Federico was dressed in clothes fit for a king, trailing along after his Mother-and-Father, smiling until his face ached.

\--

Ezio was born in the cooler days of a long summer, so late in the evening it was almost the morning again. He didn’t come home for days and when he arrived (at last) he was a misshapen kind of thing, unnaturally suffuse with color from his constant wailing, swaddled in fine blankets. Federico was in short pants, with white socks on his feet, leaning against his Mother’s lap while she sang to the unwelcome interloper. Her voice was a sweet-song of love but when the baby was quiet (at last), she laid him in her lap and ran her fingers through the curled wisps of his dark-dark hair and said, “ _you must always look after your brother, Federico. You are the oldest now._ ” 

\--

His brother—round faced and banshee-voiced did not learn to walk in the long nights of winter but picked himself up from a lump on the ground that mouthed at furniture legs and round-baby-rattles and _ran_. Ezio was fat-thighs and sticky fingers, chasing Federico around the house with his high-pitched wail. Federico was a tall boy, strong and agile. He could jump across tables and climb up corners. It was only inevitable that Ezio would try to follow him, and equally inevitable that he would bash his head into the corner of a table. Mother was patient and loving with blood all over her hands and her dress but she was cold-and-heartless with a white napkin smoothed under her hands at the kitchen table long after the doctor had gone. Ezio was soothed and sleeping in Father’s lap, away in the study. Mother was chin-up, eyes-down, staring at Federico while he squirmed in a chair. “You must think of the consequences of your actions, Federico.” What gruesome words to speak with his baby brother’s blood like a flood down the front of her shirt. “ _You must look after your brother, Federico_ ,” Mother said like he’d _forgotten_ , “he trusts you.”

\--

Federico met Edward in the summer, out in the well-tended yards of Grandma Phyllis’ mansion. At seven, Federico was full of the idea of unhappiness, stock to the brim with the obligation of smiling for cameras and putting up with the whimpered demands of his brother that followed him around with his arms up, whining ‘Federico’ like a cure-all to problems he should have taken care of himself. Ezio had a smile that melted Mother’s heart and sweetly-curled black hair that made his round little face angelic to everyone that met him. There was no person in the world that Ezio could not charm (except for Federico).

Out in the yard, Edward was eating whatever he’d stolen from the kitchens, drinking sodas (or whatever else he could find) while he was wiping dirt off his hands onto his khaki pants. He pulled the blooms off bushes and crushed them in buckets. He buried the remains in holes in the yard. Federico watched him for hours and offered to help but Edward told him to go play with his stupid baby and told him to go away.

Phyllis was furious when the crime was discovered and Federico was peevish with being ignored. He volunteered the criminal with a smug grin of pride. The feeling of accomplishment (and the floating sensation of being praised so highly by Phyllis who praised nobody) followed him straight through the night and morning again. 

Out in the yard, Ezio was crouched down with his fingers chasing worms in loose dirt and Federico was unhappily given the task of minding his brother. He was sighing over stupid three year olds when Edward grabbed him by the shirt and threw him on the ground. Edward was _ten_ and _big_ and _mean_ and furious-hurt and embarrassed-guilt made him stronger than Federico could imagine ever becoming. 

Edward didn’t stop until the scuffle of approaching adults interrupted his vengeance. There was blood on his knuckles when he grabbed Federico by the face and said, “ _learn to keep your mouth shut_.” 

But it was Ezio, in the aftermath, standing there with his shoulders hunched up like a bulldog and his teeth in a white-hiss of anger, that said: “ _I won’t let him do it, I won’t let him get away with it, I’m going to get him!_ ” before he took off running after Edward’s retreating back. Federico’s head felt like beating drums and broken glass but he dragged himself up, grabbed the rock he’d moved to let Ezio pick at worms, and ran after the two of them. He caught Ezio by the shirt and stopped short to take aim and launch his rock at Edward.

It hit him in the back and knocked him over. The whole debacle ended in the kitchen, with ice pressed to the swollen wreck of Federico’s face and towels soaked in his blood. Father was sighing over his broken nose and the damage that was done, but there was pride in his face when he said, “ _you did the right thing. Always fight back._ ”

\--

At school, his teachers said, “sit still,” and they said, “pay attention.” When he was home-again from the long day of learning things, his Father was in the study with books of numbers keeping him company. Mother was in the kitchen making dinner with Ezio-the-baby that ate tomatoes like apples and tasted all the dough he could find. 

Father sat with him and taught him addition and said, “ _you are very smart, Federico. One day you’ll take over the business_.” The books of numbers were mountains to a boy but his Father’s pride was sunshine-and-bright-promise. “The way I took it from my father.”

In the kitchen, his Mother gave him tastes of fresh-made food and kissed him on the cheek. She always ran her finger down his broken nose and smiled at him in a way that was nothing compared to the glow of love sweet-angelic-baby Ezio got. But she said, “ _the kitchen is the heart of the family. Marry a woman who looks after your heart._ ”

\--

Federico was nine the summer the fat baby came to rule Grandmother’s home. Phyllis had never loved him (as far as Federico was able to discern) with any special intensity. She was a woman of squared shoulders and up-turned chin, always moving as if the house were on fire with a clutch of assistants trailing after her with papers and pens and pleas for opinions. Grandmother Phyllis was a monster wrapped up in the pale skin of a woman; a wildfire contained in human form. 

Maybe Federico had known the sort of retribution that Grandmother had meted out on Edward last-year or the-year-before and maybe he hadn’t really understood what it meant to be trapped in front of the woman. He found it out the first time he turned a corner screaming after Ezio’s name and shrill-pitch of his little-boy voice woke the fat-baby from his afternoon nap. 

Altair’s crying was like a fire alarm. The whole house shifted and tensed, Mrs. Finch (summoned from her kitchens, grabbed Federico by the arm and pulled him up against her body. She slid both arms around him and hustled him out of the room and down the side hall away from the quick-clap of Grandmother’s heels). “ _Go outside, go before she catches you_ ,” was Mrs. Finch infinite wisdom sending him away from a worse fate. 

But Grandma Phyllis was patient-and-cruel. She waited like a curled up snake, content to hide until he happened across her path. Federico (had a mouth, so his Mother-and-Father liked to say) had no particular fear of being chastised or even punished. He had earned every bit of discipline he’d ever been given but maybe he hadn’t even _considered_ what it must have felt like to be slapped across the face. Grandma Phyllis pushed her two fingers against the underside of his chin while his face was stinging-and-red. She stared in his face as _rage_ and _shame_ suffused the entirety of his body from top-to-bottom. 

“ _Control your mouth in my house_ ,” was what Grandma Phyllis said to him. 

\--

Then there was Edward who found him in the yard when Federico got put out. Edward snorted a smirk when he saw Federico kicking statues. But sideways to the amusement, sideways to the smugness, there was the sincerest and most painful sympathy that crossed Edward’s face.

He said, “ _your Mom didn’t stop her?_ ”

But that was something _else_ , something Federico couldn’t untangle in the center of his chest. At nine-years-old he couldn’t begin to imagine the delicate politics that surrounded Grandma Phyllis, he couldn’t wrap his head around the importance of wealth and the sort of inheritance that he stood to gain from. His life was comfortable and his Mother (had been) the most ferocious woman in the world. There was nothing but _pain_ and _shame_ stuck in his head at the echo of his Mother saying “ _do what Grandma says, Federico. Go outside._ ”

It was only Edward drawing in a breath and letting it out again. He pressed his lips together as he nodded his head. There was exhausted anger caught in his old-man’s-face when he said, “ _nobody’s going to stand up for you. Not to_ her.”

They weren’t friends that summer, out in the yard: starting fires out of old twigs and pouring poison on the flower beds but they were something cut from the same cloth. Edward taught Federico how to throw a punch and they practiced bloodying one another’s noses in the late afternoons while the fat baby slept in his royal crib.

\--

Father liked to say, “ _you’ll never have a secret from your Mother, son. So never try to keep one_.” 

Mother liked to say, “ _you’re too clever. You see too much._ ” When she was combing her fingers through his hair. He was ten-almost-eleven and she was pregnant (again). There was safety in her bed, in the big room where she slept with his father. The doctors were worried about the baby and Mother was trapped in bed. Federico read to her to keep her company and she told him stories of the times when he was the only-baby-ever.

Federico said, “ _like you?_ ” when it was still important that he was a reflection of his parents. Not in the way they wanted him to be. Not the smiling boy with the clean shirt and the straight back. Not the one that looked after his brother and learned his numbers quick-and-sure. But the one that saw the world the way his Mother did and was as strong as his father was tall. 

Oh, and Mother’s face was so-very-sad when she pulled him down to kiss his forehead. Her hands on his face were an apology that her actions never echoed. “ _I would have given you any legacy but that, my son._ ” 

\--

Federico’s eyes found enough trouble that his mouth just couldn’t keep him from mentioning. So he was nagging at his father in the start of summer, saying, “ _what’s wrong with Desmond? He’s not even a real kid_.” He was stalking William in the house, trying to trap him in a room somewhere, and when he finally caught him in the pantry going through the boxes, he said:

“What’s wrong with your kid that he doesn’t ever talk?”

Father was angry but Mother was not. Father pulled Federico into an empty room and said, “ _you are_ my son _and I would_ thank no one _for telling me how to raise you. Apologize to your Uncle and stay out of his affairs. Desmond is his child and you will not criticize the way he is raised._ ”

So Federico was grinding his teeth, biting out words of an apology he didn’t mean to a man that he had no particular love for. William was so-very-accepting of his apology. His hand was warm on Federico’s shoulder when he said, “ _it takes a real man to know when he’s wrong. You did good, son. It’s no wonder your father is so proud of you._ ”

\--

Claudia was _Ezio’s baby_. They worked it out in the early months of her life when she was an obnoxious pink cloud. Ezio declared ownership with simple logic saying, “ _well, I was your baby and now Claudia is mine._ ”

It was just fine as far as Federico was concerned because babies annoyed him. But maybe Claudia was charming when she was crawling around the villa with frills like flowers protruding from every direction. Ezio was trailing after her with chubby feet and short arms, hauling her up to hold her against his chest as she screamed for freedom. 

Federico only rescued her when Father was home. Mother was content to let them manage their own affairs as long as nobody was bleeding at the end but Father thought girls were meant to be raised differently that boys.

“ _Women are different, son,_ ” Father said when he cradled Claudia to his chest, “ _you have to treat them softly so they stay soft_.” 

But when Father wasn’t there, Federico watched Ezio carry Claudia around with his arms like bars across her chest and his laugh a gleeful-demon’s happiness at her unending despair. 

\--

Federico had his Mother’s (all-seeing) eyes, and it must have been why he looked at Petruccio in the gray months after his birth and _knew_ long before his parents bothered to say anything. It was years before Federico caught his Mother crying in Petruccio’s room while he slept. It was years before he cornered his father (crying-alone in his study) and said, “he’s dying isn’t he?”

Father said, “ _yes_.” Then he wiped the tears away from his face and let out a breath. “You’ll have to be strong, Federico. The others will watch you to know how to feel.”

\--

The first time Federico threw Ezio over the bannister of the interior balcony that overlooked the main living space, Mother yelled at him for _hours_. And Father said ( _your Mother can forgive you for anything but ruining your brother’s face_ ) and that must have been why the second time Federico threw Ezio over, he made sure to cover his stupid fucking face with a pillow. 

Ezio was laughing on the ground, broken arm to his chest as he fought back to his feet, looking up at him like saying _you’re not getting away with it again_. They weren’t back from the hospital fifteen minutes when Ezio got his hands on Federico and they brawled their way down the stairs of the old villa. Federico had a concussion and Ezio crowed victory all the way back to the ER. 

It went on-and-on. Federico started fights with Ezio until his brother was in his bedroom after midnight, hitting him with pillowcases full of whatever toys fit best. Ezio was _furious_ , shouting at him, “ _why don’t you love me anymore! Why can’t I be your brother anymore?_ ” 

Federico fought back with hardbacks, threw them at Ezio in the dark until his brother cried. They were on the floor of his bedroom, hugging like morons. Federico said, “ _you’re my brother, you’re_ mine _and I will never stop loving you. I’m just angry._ ”

“Because of Petruccio? I’m angry too,” Ezio said. His sniffles were underscores to the dead weight in Federico’s gut. There was no anger that his baby brother was dying. There was nothing. A great hole had opened in the middle of him and it persisted and it _grew_ but it was not filled with any rage or any pain about Petruccio-the-angel. 

\--

“ _Your actions are selfish,_ ” Mother said when she sent them away. 

“ _You’re too old to behave this way,_ ” Father said when he allowed it.

“ _You must make something of yourself_ ,” Grandmother said when he arrived at her mansion. The fat baby was a fat toddler, sucking on his fingers and cookies and cake from the kitchen with his strange-gold-brown eyes and his darker-than-white skin. “ _Or the world will make something out of you that you may not like_.”

\--

Federico was fifteen and Edward was eighteen. 

In the house (where Edward was not allowed beyond the kitchen), on days when it rained, Federico laid out on Victorian fainting couches and taught the fat baby Italian words. Ezio had been stupid about language, had picked up English after _years_ of effort and still couldn’t find the words he was looking for as quickly as he needed them. But this fat-baby had miracle ears and a quick-quick mouth.

Out in the garden, Edward gave him beer in bottles and porn magazines with wrinkled pages. He taught him how to smoke behind the bushes and told him the _truth_ about how Grandma Phyllis still went to fuck Grandpa and it was _disgusting_.

Grandpa caught them but he didn’t put an end to the disaster when anyone-else-might have. He sat on a bench in the roses and drank with them. There was age and horror sunk into the lines of his face. He tipped his bottle against theirs in a quiet cheers and he said, “ _boys, never marry a woman for love. Love never lasts_.”

\--

Federico sold Edward out at the end of the summer. He took what he knew and he poured it into Grandma Phyllis’ ears. He watched it fill her up until she was fit to burst and then he showed her the handful of cigarette butts. 

Edward didn’t corner him but he did catch him in the front drive when he was being exiled. He said, “ _watch your back, Federico. Nobody else will. Not someone like you_.”

\--

Home was a tomb, a shrine to the slow-dying child. Federico took his turns sitting at Petruccio’s bedside, listening to him breath and reading him books about birds. Petruccio-the-angel had their Mother’s _all-seeing_ eyes or the wisdom of death because he knew (like everyone else knew) that Federico was filling up with blackness.

“ _Thank you,_ ” Petruccio always said when Federico read to him. “ _I know you don’t want to_.”

The truth was terrible and Federico knew that sure-enough by the time he was seventeen. He sighed when Petruccio smiled at him (thin and wan). “I’ll do whatever I can to make what life you’ve got better.”

“ _Don’t let them tell you that you don’t have a heart_ ,” Petruccio said to him. Because he was sick-all-the-time, stuck by his bed and at his Mother’s side. He had no playmates but Claudia. Petruccio heard their parents’ despair over Federico’s fists finding faces to hit. They spread their worry like butter and it melted into every facet of the family.

“ _Only for you, kid_ ,” Federico whispered (like a secret, like their secret).

\--

Federico fucked two or three girls before his Mother finally cornered him about it. She sat him down and she stared him in the face and she said, “ _Understand, that you are the oldest son. Your behavior is a reflection of our values and you are the future of our family._ ” Maybe he could have been confused about what she meant, about whether or not he was supposed to keep fucking women or if he had to treat them _softer_ the way his father thought he should. Maybe he expected his Mother to tell him that he needed to know what love was and treat sex like a holy thing the way the Bible liked to tell him he ought to. But Mother said, “ _have your fun but you will marry the first woman you get pregnant or you will no longer be our son._ ”

Maybe Mother meant it to scare him away from his activities. Maybe she meant it just as fair warning. Maybe Mother meant it a hundred-different-ways but Federico took her advice and he dumped a box of condoms in Ezio’s lap when the brat was too-young-to-use them.

\--

In between the other things, sideways to the blackness growing in Federico’s chest and in ignorance to the certainty of Petruccio’s walk toward death, there were the moments when his family was _alive_. Those moments when Father chased them around the house like they were all small children again. When he wrestled with Ezio in the yard and Mother clapped along to their antics. 

Mother sang Christmas carols at the piano and Ezio let Claudia paint his face in Mother’s make up. They wore their ugly sweaters in a parade through the house.

There was his Father with his arms around all-four-of-his-children with a smile on his face and his mouth a wet press of kisses on their temples. He said, “ _I’ll never need anything but my family_.”

\--

But the dark times was Mother, out of places to send rowdy-boys that never-listened and fed-up with Federico forgetting he was a full-grown-man, her face red with fury and her body small and brittle in comparison to the swell of muscles and inarticulate rage that Federico carried in his body. She screamed at him, “get out! Get out! Get out of _my house_!” With her hands on his chest and her feet pressed into the abandoned kitchen.

Mother quit cooking when her last child started dying and nobody even-noticed or-cared. Father was lean with lost meat and their meals were made by the same women that were hired to clean their house. 

Federico screamed, “fine!” at his Mother like he could snap her bones with the words and he left with the door rattling on the frame behind him. 

He came back sooner-or-later, when he thought he could manage it. Mother was never in the kitchen when he came home. She was never up in the middle of the night, making warm drinks for little boys with bad dreams. Federico came home to find Ezio in the kitchen with a lonely mug of something steaming. “ _Can’t you just stop?_ ” Ezio asked him, “ _Petruccio is dying, can’t you just stop for a while?_ ”

Because Federico was a heartless monster, ripping apart his family, and Ezio was the sweet-faced-angel that Mother had loved since the day he was born. Federico wanted to tell Ezio all of it, all of the black things that grew in the empty space in his chest, all of his hate and all of his pain and all of the regrets-and-worries-and-fierce _furies_ but the words couldn’t be forced through his clenched teeth. He only nodded his head.

\--

Federico wasn’t at home when Petruccio died. Father came to fetch him because Mother would have let him die in jail. His Father’s vengeance was immediate, a quick-concise-slap to the face and the words, “ _you are a worthless_ child. _You are a disgrace_.”

The words chewed their way around his head but Federico didn’t fight him about it. He didn’t fight his Mother’s agony. He didn’t fight his brother’s sorrow or his sister’s constant tears. Federico didn’t _fight_ anything. 

\--

California was far from Italy but it was warm and it was useful to work. Federico moved out of his Mother’s house, away from her hostile silence. He made friends with strangers that knew nothing about his family, people at university that didn’t care about the money or his life or the blackness in his chest. 

“ _You’re like a dog—like a Rottweiler,_ ” one of the drunk philosophers said to him, “ _like sometimes you’re a big puppy but sometimes you’re foaming at the mouth, you know?_ ”

\--

Ezio started a blood feud with De Pazzi over a girl. He got his mouth split open up-and-down in a fight that Federico hadn’t been there to fight with him. He’d come after, when the blood was an obscene river down his neck and shirt. Ezio’s knuckles were black from dirt and blood and he was _livid_ not _hurt_. 

In the quiet of their home, after the incident was swept up under the rug, Federico was waiting for Ezio to finish getting dressed so they could go out to dinner. Mother found him in the front room by the door with her solemn face and her eyebrows that judged him for his failures. 

“Mother.”

Mother said, “ _your Grandmother’s dying._ ”

Phyllis was meaningless to him, but Federico agreed to be dragged along anyway.

\--

The truth was that, in all the years Federico knew him, Desmond had been a ghost. The boy had stood still and spoke softly. He had refused treats and turned down games. He had said, “ _my father wouldn’t like it_ so often that Ezio had started calling him ‘daddy’s baby’ and taunted him about having to ask permission to do anything. 

There wasn’t much in the world that moved Desmond to smile (to action, to motion of any sort) but the fool was like the rest of them: incapable of saying no to the fat baby. Altair _adored_ Desmond. He had loved him best when they were all stupid kids at Christmas and Desmond carried Altair by the neck while the adults laughed and snapped photographs. Altair had loved him best at birthday parties when he grabbed Desmond’s hand and dragged him into the games. 

Desmond smiled at Altair, he laughed at this stupid jokes and he ate the pilfered snacks that Altair pulled out of his bottomless pockets.

When Mother told him, “ _Desmond says that William has abused him._ ” She also told him: “ _No matter what you hear, you absolutely may not tell Altair._ ”

Well-that-made sense because Federico got his ass handed to him by a bully that picked on Ezio for half a year of elementary school and he’d had to get his teeth put back in and stitches in one of his elbows but he convinced his father not to tell Ezio he’d failed because the kid worshipped him like a god of war. Father agreed, Federico took a weapon with him when he went after the bully the second time and Ezio was never bothered again.

It was his Father, full of _spite_ and _fury_ that said, “ _selfishness! Pure selfishness. This is what your Mother has agreed to bring into our house._.” Father didn’t believe Desmond and the coldness he employed to convey his distrust and disbelief was as evident as William’s constant whining over how he had been wronged. 

Phyllis was dying embers, a fire being drown by a flood, and Federico sat at her bedside when it was his turn and watched her breathing in-and-out. When she opened her eyes and looked at him, she said, “ _I know what you did with Edward all those summers._ ”

Federico shrugged. 

“ _Watch yourself, boy. That’s how it gets you. Evil doesn’t come all at once, it fills you up by degrees, it feeds on your spite and your hate until it’s all you feel._ ” 

Phyllis was dying and Federico was _tired_ , “ _too late_.”

And Phyllis laughed with him, a twin of bitter laughs. They were monsters together, in those brief laughs, all at once exalted in the glory of their failure.

\--

The fat baby came to live in the house and Mother said, “ _he is ours now and we will protect him_.” 

The ghost came to live in their house and Mother said, “ _once words are spoken they cannot be taken back. Be careful what you say_.” 

But in the dining room, after dinner was over and the fat baby was already gone with Claudia, when Federico said, “I thought you’d get fatter now that you finally get to eat whenever you want,” and Giovanni said, “someone might think you were lying, Desmond.”

Mother was silent-as-stone. 

\--

Ezio-loved-Cristina and everyone knew it. Cristina ripped Ezio’s heart out and nobody knew why. Federico consoled his brother with an arm around his shoulders and a good supply of food and liquor. They made a week of pity and sadness. And when it was done, Father happened to invite himself over to Federico’s house for a drink.

They were men together, his Father a slim shadow of his former self and Federico a hollowed husk. Father picked at the label of his beer and said, “ _don’t marry for love, son. Your heart—it changes, it ebbs and flows with intensity. Base your future on solid ground._ ”

Federico only sighed. He took a drink to that.

\--

When the fat baby hired a lawyer, filed a petition and forcibly emancipated himself from their family, Mother did not fight him. Father let it happen because boys must become men and men could not be treated with softness. 

Ezio slammed doors and shoved Federico backward. He started a fight that bloodied their noises and bruised their knuckles and when they were done and they were huffing for breath on the ground, Ezio said, “I promised Grandma I’d look out for him. He’s so stupid. He’s so—”

Federico laughed. “ _Let Desmond have him. They deserve each other._.”

And Ezio rolled over onto his stomach and pushed himself up to sit on his knees. Ezio was as handsome as a man as he’d been adorable as a child. But his face was the cruel-shrewd face of their Mother. He said, “ _you’re wrong about Desmond_.” 

\--

The fat baby grew up stupid and impetuous. Desmond sank himself into isolation so complete not even Edward could claim to be as far removed from his Mother’s grasp as Desmond was. Cristina found him in a bar when Federico was filled with gray-black-nothing and she bought him a drink and talked to him about the times they used to have.

She was a beautiful-beautiful woman. They made a grand show out of not-fucking and it kept on and on with their intermittent, accidental meetings until she invited herself into his home and he carried her straightaway to his bed.

“ _Don’t ask me to compare you to your brother_ ,” she said when embarrassment must have overcome post-coital glow. Her body was warm against his as she rolled on top of him. Her breasts were pressed to his chest as she ran her thumb down his long-ago-broken nose and smiled at him. 

Federico put his hands on her back. “ _I have long been aware I cannot compete with him._.” Then she laughed at him and kissed him again. 

\--

Pregnancy was inevitable. His Mother’s wrath was assured. But it was Father that showed up at his place with quiet determination and laid it out for him. There was no money and no connections without a marriage. Federico simply had no choice but to do what he was told.

Perhaps Federico could have told them to go fuck themselves because he had a Master’s degree, he had _options_. But Cristina came to him, after dark, and she said, “ _marry me. I can’t stand what they’ll do to you._ ”

Federico laughed at that because boy-was-it-a-hoot, and he said, “you think this marriage will stop them? I’m just marrying you for the money. They’ll own you. You’ll never get out again.”

Cristina smiled, “but our children will never suffer. We’ll never struggle. We won’t answer to them. You’ll be a husband and a father, you’ll have your own family. _We_ are the future of this family.”

It was a romantic ideal from a practical woman. Federico sighed. “Ezio will beat the shit out of me over this.”

Cristina kissed him and nodded her head. “ _I picked you because you can weather any storm. You can weather this one too, and I will be at your side in the end._ ”

\--

The day his baby was born, Cristina was covered in sweat, exhausted and _glowing_. His Mother was full of bright-light with a brand-new baby boy in her arms. His Father laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. He said, “ _you’re a father now. I’m so proud of you_.” And Federico was caught up in a storm of things, caught between the strange joy of holding his child and the laughable ridiculousness of his father’ being proud of him for depositing successful sperm into a viable uterus. 

\--

It was inevitable that the fat baby found out about Desmond. It was inevitable that he grew into his Grandmother’s vengeance. If Federico weren’t so angry about it, he would have been proud of him. He might have pulled him aside the way Federico had been pulled aside, and he might have said “ _that’s how it gets you_ ,” but Altair was a far-more-effective monster.

Over the phone, Ezio said, “ _I know you, Federico, I know you. But you’re wrong. You have to stop escalating, you have to think it through._ ” But Federico had his Father on his side, and he had William’s little-rat-voice in his ear telling him how much of a man he was, about how honorable men stuck together.

And Federico said (over the phone), “kiss my baby for me. Either one.” And Ezio made a noise like he’d been punched in the nuts in the last second before Federico hung up on him. 

\--

When it came to an end, in the dull days after an embarrassing Christmas, Father called him into the study and he said, “your Mother believes that William has not been truthful with us. How will we convince him to tell the truth?” 

Federico was full of black spaces. He said, “I’ll break him.” He meant _into a thousand pieces_ and Father nodded his head. 

“ _Stop when I tell you to stop_ ,” was all the advice he offered.

\--

So it was: Mother standing at the head of the table, looking regal in a red-red-dress with her fingertips against the polished wood. Her voice was a smooth timber, unforgiving and final, as she said: “I must know the truth, William.” But she left because women were _soft_ and the doors that kept her from the violence in this room were thick and _locked_.

Father sat in the chair that Mother abandoned. He crossed one leg over the other as William looked up at Federico with his eyes going wet and wide. “I do not appreciate being embarrassed, Mr. Miles.” 

Federico grabbed William by the back of the shirt and pulled him backward. It knocked the chair over and threw his whole body into a tumble of flailing limbs. William was not soft (by any means), years of hard labor had given his body weight and definition but all his strength was useless. 

He hit him (once,) and his father said, “ _a Father should protect his sons_.”

They had worked it out, Father and Federico, they’d perfected the image that haunted them. Father was cold and distant and Federico was a mad-dog with tenderizing-fists. But William was a wimp that blurted out a sob of regret in the brief span of seconds between the first hit and the second. 

But it wasn’t _that_ easy because _Federico_ had cornered Desmond in the end of halls and around the corners of the house. He’d spit his _hate-like-justice_ in Desmond’s face. And wasn’t-that-funny because William was babbling: 

“Wait-wait-wa—”

It was the pitiful gasp of a man that had _done wrong_. Federico knew because he was a _monster_ with eyes like his Mother and he’d taken a knife to carve up the bully that beat up Ezio in grade school. He’d cut that skinny bastard and he’d listened to him beg forgiveness for his sins and it sounded _just-like-this_.

But it was Desmond (the ghost, silent and gray) that persisted in his mind, ducking his head and hunching his shoulders. He never-ever-fought _back_ (and why would he?) but William had his palms up and his voice in a stutter and he was _afraid_. 

Federico grabbed him by the face, spread his palm across William’s whimpering mouth and slammed his head against the wall. He held him there with one hand to his collarbone and he hit him until his Father’s voice cut through the pounding-assault of (guilt) that churned up the depths of the blackness stinging the center of his chest. 

William was on the floor, crying for mercy and Federico was standing over him with his chest heaving and his hand going numb. “I’m sorry,” William was crying, “I’m sorry.”

Federico looked at father and Father motioned at the chair. So Federico picked William up and dropped him back into his seat. 

Father had his hands on his lap and his face placid-and-smooth when he said, “tell me everything that you did to Desmond.”

And it poured out like an ocean, filling the room to the brim. 

\--

Mother went to handle the formal apologies. Federico went to the room where Desmond slept when he was in their house. He sat on the floor with his back to the bed and stared into the closet where he used to find little stores of stolen food, horded carefully from school lunches, saved from breakfast-and-dinner in little napkins. Snacks that were given freely were half-eaten treasures in Desmond’s closet and Federico had found the whole lot once and stood in this room throwing each bit of the food at Desmond while he stood with his back stiff and his head ducked down, accepting-and-not-fighting the assault. 

“We couldn’t have known,” Father said from the doorway when he found Federico.

“Oh bullshit.” When he looked over his shoulder, Father wasn’t impressed. Federico was on his feet, “we could have known, we _should_ have known. _You_ should have known! _Mother_ should have known! He was _there_ every year! I _told_ you! I told you that he wasn’t a real kid! Did you listen to what _that man_ did to him?”

“Feder—”

“NO!” Federico shouted. He was shaking (apart, all to pieces) because his chest was on fire the way _Phyllis_ had been once. He said, “you didn’t care! You and _her_ , you still don’t _care_. You haven’t cared about anything since your precious _dying angel_ was born!”

Father said, “don’t talk about your brother that way!”

Oh, but Federico was shouting, “why? I never got to _see_ him! I never got to be his brother! I was never _allowed_. You told William that _fathers protect their sons_ and that’s a fucking _joke_ coming from _you_! Did you think that I didn’t know? Did you think that I spent my whole life without knowing you loved _Ezio_ more? That _Claudia_ was better than me? That Mother _tolerated_ me? Don’t fucking touch me!” Federico stepped backward before his father could get to him. 

And Father just stood there with his arms at his sides and his face in a peculiar despair. He shook his head, “that’s not what happened, Federico.”

“I _know_ what _happened_ ,” Federico said. His throat was _on fire_ with pain that cracked in his voice and coiled up in his fists. He said, “you didn’t protect me, I’m a _monster_ , just like my Mother.” But that wasn’t why he was _here_ , and Federico wasn’t on the verge of tears when he said: “You didn’t protect Desmond when you had the chance. If Fathers protect their sons, you’re _nobody’s_ father.”

Father did not fight him on the point but nod his head. “Remember our failures when you are raising your own son,” Father said. “Each generation must do better than the one before.”

\--

The fat baby came for blood, in the end. Federico let him have it (but not without a fight) because it was blood he owed. Away from cameras and away from lights, away from his family, he found Desmond sitting with his girlfriend (beautiful-and-vibrant and _deadly_ ) and he said (removed of all posturing).

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness. But I am sorry.”

Desmond didn’t forgive him. He said, “it was never me you had to worry about, Federico.” (It was the fat baby, all grown up, holding court over the empire. His hard fists and his strange-gold-brown eyes were full of his Grandmother’s dragon fire. Monsters never-ever-forgave anyone.)


End file.
